The Undying Immortal System

Chapter 455 – Life 117, Age 21, Martial Master Peak

Our fourth day in the Shattered Blades Realm started much the same as any other. We woke up, spent the morning practicing our professions, then entered the forest for a bit of hunting. However, an hour or so after leaving camp, my group ran into its greatest challenge yet: a pack of three Rank 2 demon wolves.

Lean, gray shapes with eyes like cold embers emerged from the shadows without a sound. One had reinforced its hide and bones, turning it into a battering ram. Another had focused on muscles and tendons, giving it a gift for explosive leaps and lightning-fast sprints. The last had empowered its muscles and nervous system, giving it uncanny coordination and perfect timing.

My Disciples had become quite skilled at wearing down lone Rank 2 beasts, but against three specialized predators, their usual methods fell apart almost immediately.

Under normal circumstances, they would have spread out and surrounded their target, ensuring that at least two people were attacking from a blind spot. Against three wolves, this simply wasn’t possible. They didn’t have the numbers to encircle all three, and if they tried to focus their attacks on one, they would be easy pickings for the others.

To counter this, my Disciples bunched up so they could cover one another’s backs, but the wolf with the reinforced hide hurled itself forward without the slightest regard for its own injuries, smashing their line apart with its sheer bulk. When my Disciples tried to regroup, another wolf slipped into the gaps, forcing them to turn and defend. Blades thudded uselessly against hardened hide, roots were torn free of the soil before they could take hold, and every failed counter left teeth scraping across cloth and skin.

Less than a minute into the battle, it was clear that my Disciples wouldn’t emerge victorious. How would they respond? Would they break and run, or would they fight to the end?

As seconds ticked by and it became clear that none of them intended to retreat, I had no choice but to step in before things took a turn for the worse.

Activating a movement technique, I flashed past the circling wolves and slipped into the ring of defenders, where Sulan YaoQing was reaching into her bag for another attack pill. She had burned through half a dozen in this fight already, and not a single one had caused any real damage. So, rather than let her waste any more, I caught her wrist and redirected her hand back to the haft of her guandao.

“Enough,” I said. “Those pills are only useful against weaker beasts. Keep them for when the beast tide arrives. For now, focus on learning to use your weapon.”

With a light tap of my knuckles, I pushed a thread of qi into the blade of YaoQing’s guandao. The outer layer of steel cracked and peeled back, revealing the intricate inscriptions of the formation that had been hidden beneath.

“Just point your guandao at the enemy and send a single thread of qi into this junction,” I said, tapping a spot near the base of the weapon’s blade. “Just remember, use as little energy as possible. Any qi you spend won’t come back until we leave this place.”

YaoQing swallowed, fingers tightening around the haft of her weapon. Then, with visible reluctance, she leveled its blade at the wolf with the reinforced hide and injected a thread of qi into its formation.

A vortex of guandao qi immediately began swirling around the base of the blade. In energy vision, this was obvious, but in normal vision, it must have looked like nothing had happened. Confused, YaoQing relaxed her grip and allowed her aim to drift.

The compressed qi chose that exact instant to burst forth at a skewed angle and brush past Ye Sheng’s right shoulder before burying itself harmlessly in the forest floor.

Ye Sheng jerked to the side on reflex, hand flying to his shoulder. Finding no injury, he let out a tight breath and shot YaoQing a look that was equal parts alarm and accusation. “That was—”

The wolves struck before he could finish, one snapping at his ribs while another lunged for his unprotected back. With Bao Ming and Shi TieWen rushing in to help, Ye Sheng managed to fend them off, but not before a flurry of shallow bites and claw marks found their way through his defenses.

Sulan YaoQing stood rooted in place, horror written plainly on her face. Clamping a hand around her arm, I hauled her guandao back into position.

“Try again,” I ordered. “Keep your blade fixed on your target. Do not point it toward an ally.”

Teeth clenched, YaoQing reset her stance, drew in a slow breath, and leveled her weapon once more. This time, she waited for a wolf to enter the gap between Shi TieWen and Bao Ming. Then, she sent a trickle of qi into her weapon to activate the formation.

Two seconds later, the blade’s formation flared to life. A tight lance of gray light burst from the tip of YaoQing’s guandao, shot forward, and slammed into the wolf’s flank. The beast’s hide offered little resistance, but when this attack met reinforced muscle, its force bled away, leaving behind only a thin, shallow wound.

“Good,” I said, patting YaoQing on the shoulder. “Your weapon is designed to let you attack targets from a distance. If you use more energy, you’ll be able to do more damage, but don’t. Your job is to weaken and distract the enemy, not to kill them.”

With Sulan YaoQing taken care of, I turned my attention to the others.

Shi TieWen’s guandao was similar to YaoQing’s. It launched weak, long-range strikes meant to harass enemies from afar. If I had designed these formations to use bow qi, they likely would have been far more effective, but I didn’t want to start introducing other types of qi until I had a better understanding of how it would affect the development of people’s affinities.

In any case, while not as powerful as they might have been, these formations had more than enough power to instantly kill a Rank 1 beast. And, if used properly, they would be sufficient to grab the attention of even a Rank 3 beast.

Of course, while distractions were nice, they weren’t enough. Our group also needed power. That was the role of Ye Sheng’s, Bao Ming’s, and Sulan DanQing’s weapons.

Rather than firing at range, these formations condensed energy into a fine line that clung to the blade’s natural edge, extending it by a few millimeters. The additional range this offered was negligible, but the additional power was impressive. After activating these formations, their guandaos were capable of slicing through Rank 2 defenses with ease. Most Rank 3 defenses wouldn’t even be able to block them.

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Once the last of these formations was unlocked, the three demon wolves no longer stood a chance. Shi TieWen and Sulan YaoQing used their long-ranged attacks to create openings, while the other three used their enhanced blades to carve through the wolves with brutal efficiency. Within seconds, the wolves were down, and the battle was finished.

Flushed with success, my Disciples insisted on pushing deeper into the forest to search for stronger prey. But, after cutting down a few small packs of Rank 1 beasts, we came upon a terrifying sight: a massive Rank 3 grizzly bear.

Even with the power of their newly-unlocked weapons, this wasn’t something my Disciples were ready to face. So, I raised a hand and silently signaled a retreat, guiding everyone back the way we came.

Strangely, the beast just… let us go.

If this had been a real beast, this behavior would have made sense. Perhaps it hadn’t noticed us yet, or perhaps we simply weren’t worth the effort. This wasn’t a real beast, though. It was an illusion under the direct control of the Sect Affairs Bureau. Every other beast we had encountered in this forest had hurled itself at us the instant it appeared. This one just stood there, silently pawing at the ground.

Was this intended as some kind of optional trial? Or was it merely a guard meant to keep us from wandering too far from the other groups? In the end, the answer was irrelevant. My Disciples weren’t ready to face a Rank 3 beast, so all we could do was turn around and leave.

When the forest brightened on our fifth morning in the Shattered Blades Realm, my Disciples were already moving. After seeing more of what this realm could throw at us, they drove themselves harder than ever before.

The Sulan cousins were especially focused. After the complete failure of their Rank 1 attack pills, they threw themselves into their work with renewed determination. Their goal was simple: to concoct a more powerful pill. They couldn’t hope to make a Rank 2 pill in these conditions, but they wanted to at least produce a one- or two-patterned pill.

Unfortunately, I had already confirmed that this wasn’t possible.

Like the Nine Rivers Continent, this Shattered Blades Realm lacked the Laws needed to create pill patterns. At best, the cousins would be able to create high-efficacy, unpatterned pills which good for thinning out large swarms of Rank 1 beasts, but useless against truly dangerous prey.

Not wanting to dampen their enthusiasm, however, I chose to keep this information to myself.

While the Sulan cousins tended to their furnaces, Ye Sheng and Bao Ming tended to their brambles, and Shi TieWen worked his vine fibers into nets. For a time, it looked like we were in for another quiet morning. Even with the roars of distant beasts echoing through the forest, I almost felt at peace.

Then, things changed.

A heavy, rhythmic crashing swept toward us from the direction in which we had encountered that Rank 3 grizzly. Trees splintered one after another, the impacts growing louder with every passing breath. Whatever was coming didn’t care about moving quietly. It was simply plowing through the forest, and it was headed straight for our hill.

Our thicket of mortal brambles didn’t have a chance of stopping that bear. However, between Ye Sheng’s roots, the hill’s elevation, and everything we had done to reshape the local terrain, this was the best battlefield that we were going to find. So, rather than fleeing into the unknown, I signaled my Disciples to form a shallow arc, giving us a chance to surround whatever was coming for us.

To my surprise, the first figures to burst through the tree line were not demon beasts, but a battered squad of five Disciples and one exhausted Martial Master, Meng LuYao. Her robes were torn and blood-stained, but her eyes were steady.

Spotting me on top of our hill, Meng LuYao’s expression brightened, but only for an instant. Then, she dragged in a ragged breath and shouted, voice rough from overuse, “Watch out! There’s a Rank 3 bear right behind us!”

There was no time for a proper greeting. A moment’s delay, and the wall of brambles that we had spent so much time on would only ensure the death of Meng LuYao and her entire team. Left with no other option, I lifted my guandao, activated one of its formations, and cut a tunnel straight through the dense thicket.

LuYao’s Disciples rushed forward, and when they reached the top of the hill, I motioned for them to fall in beside Ye Sheng and the rest, who were already braced to confront the oncoming beast.

Meng LuYao didn’t argue. She just snapped a few quick orders of her own, and her Disciples flowed into the gaps between mine, guandaos at the ready. A quick glance confirmed what I had been hoping for: Meng LuYao had already unlocked the formations on her group’s weapons.

“Let the Disciples handle this,” I said, pitching my voice low so only she could hear. “We’ll step in if things go south, but with all ten of them working together, a Rank 3 bear shouldn’t pose too much of a challenge.”

She grunted her agreement, then took her place at my side.

Moments later, the monstrous grizzly crashed through the trees at the base of our hill.

The beast was a fortress of demonic energy. Its hide was armor, its bones were iron pillars, and its muscles were coiled springs just waiting to be unleashed. When it charged, it tore through the wall of brambles like it wasn’t even there. Sharp thorns, twisting vines, and entangling roots—none of it made the slightest difference.

Then, just as the beast was nearly on top of us, it met something it couldn’t immediately shrug off: a net of tightly woven vines. Held firmly in the hands of Shi TieWen and empowered by the young man’s blessing, the fibers of this net trapped the beast in place for a single, vital second.

Four beams of guandao qi lanced from our line of cultivators and slammed into the bear’s face.

Howling in pain and confusion, the beast swiped wildly, tearing apart brambles and roots alike. However, in its rage, it failed to notice the five figures who had fanned out behind it. Just as the bear broke through TieWen’s net, these five Disciples leapt forward, aiming their guandaos at the bear’s hindquarters.

Even with formation-enhanced Rank 2 blades, cutting all the way through that enormous, fortified body was difficult. The Disciples couldn’t sever its legs outright, but they did gouge the muscles so deeply that the beast was left partially crippled.

This weakened the creature, but it also drove it into an even greater frenzy.

The bear slammed itself into the hillside, causing the ground to tremble beneath our feet. With a furious swipe of its massive paw, it tore up the earth, flinging boulders and clods of earth in all directions. Two of our Disciples were struck by debris and sent rolling across the dirt with bruised ribs and ringing heads.

Meng LuYao nearly stepped in at this point, but I forced her to wait.

After a series of near misses, Sulan YaoQing finally drove a beam of condensed energy straight into one of the bear’s eyes, blinding it on the right side. The beast lurched forward in retaliation, but one of LuYao’s Disciples slammed his palm on the ground and activated his blessing, turning the loose earth into a sucking pit of quicksand.

Seizing this opportunity, four empowered guandaos stabbed into the bear’s chest. Three buried themselves in bone, but one struck true, ripping into the beast’s internal organs.

The monstrous bear struggled to rise, but its strength soon bled away. It crashed back to the ground, and a thick beam of light burst from its body, shooting straight into the bracer on my wrist. 100 points felt like a rather pitiful reward for taking down such a powerful beast, but it would have to do. Anyway, once the beast tide arrived in full, earning points would be the least of our worries.